Injured local biker grateful for Samaritan

Calm woman helped save him after crash mangled leg

SAN ANGELO, Texas - In an instant, Calley "Cal" Hurley was forever changed.

So was Holiday Bailey, who was on her way to CVS when she saw, in her periphery, a large vehicle strike Hurley's motorcycle. She saw the bike flip forward and wondered, briefly, if she had imagined it.

"You don't see that every day," said Bailey, 51, during a telephone interview.

The crash occurred the morning of July 31 when 83-year-old Billie Mahler, driving a Mercury Grand Marquis, was traveling east on Sherwood Way and preparing to make a left turn onto Pecos Street.

According to a crash report, Mahler did not yield right of way to Hurley, 62, who was westbound on Sherwood Way and had a green light. Mahler's vehicle collided with Hurley's motorcycle as he passed.

"Something told me to park my car, so I pulled over, and before I could even think, I was headed toward the guy on the ground," Bailey said. "I heard him yelling, ‘I'm hurt!' Somebody was standing close to Mr. Hurley, and he had a phone, and he was holding it out as if he was videotaping or taking a picture."

Someone said 911 was called, but no one was comforting Hurley, Bailey said.

"I never did lose consciousness when the car hit me, and I remember laying there on the pavement," said Hurley, who was wearing a helmet. He discussed the crash via telephone from his hospital room at Community Medical Center, where he has received treatment since July 31.

Hurley said he lost 7 pints of blood, suffered a compound fracture of his thigh bone and broke his shoulder blade and his tibia below the knee in three places. His foot was so badly mangled that his leg had to be amputated below the knee, he said.

On Thursday, Hurley said he expected to be transferred the next day to Shannon Medical Center for inpatient rehabilitation, where doctors say he will spend the next two to four weeks.

"It was really, really hot, and I was just screaming at the top of my lungs and, like a fish out of water, just flopping around," Hurley said of the moments after the crash. "Holiday came over and put her hand on my chest to hold me down and talk to me in soothing tones and tried to distract me from my pain and stood over me and shaded me from the hot sun, basically kept me from going crazy with pain.

"It was just horrendous. My shoulder was hurting terribly and my hips and my thigh and my shin and my foot, all the way down the left side."

For Bailey, a recent retiree of No Limit Boxing Club and a former nurse, rushing to Hurley's side was instinctual.

"I have always believed that it is your duty when you see something like that to stop and render aid," she said. "I thought, ‘What if this man is dying? I don't want him to be alone with a bunch of people standing there staring at him.'"

Bailey said she noticed Hurley's left leg bent under his right leg and saw blood pooling on the pavement but didn't know the extent of his injuries until paramedics arrived.

"When they lifted up that gurney (with him on it), I saw his leg was mangled and his foot was barely hanging there," she said.

Hurley said the injury to his leg and foot occurred when he flew off the motorcycle. An engine guard on the side of the bike pinched his boot and kept it there, shredding his foot as the force of the impact pulled the rest of his body off the motorcycle.

"I lost my big toe and my heel, and it skinned the foot back and took some calf muscle with it," Hurley said.

Had he not been wearing a helmet, Hurley said, "I'd be a dead man. My son told me there was a big raspberry on the back of the helmet when he took it home. If I hadn't had that helmet, that would have been the back of my head."

Since the crash, Hurley said his moods have been "up and down."

He said he's not angry at Mahler, the woman who struck him.

"It was just a mistake," he said. "It was not a malicious act; I'm sure of that."

Tracy Gonzales, San Angelo Police Department spokeswoman, said Mahler was issued a citation for failure to yield right of way, but no additional charges will be filed because "there was no criminal finding."

Ashleigh Parr, motorcycle safety representative for her squadron at Goodfellow Air Force Base and secretary for Number One Stunnas Motor Sport Club, said driver inattention seems to be the main reason motorcycles and vehicles collide.

"You have to let people know in one way or another that they've really got to watch out for riders, especially during riding season," which is mid-March through late November in warmer climates such as San Angelo, she said.

She said her club typically avoids riding in town "because it is dangerous as far as people not really paying attention."

But, she added, "I've seen worse cities."

Hurley isn't opposed to riding a motorcycle again, but the wreck will "always be in the back of my mind, certainly," he said.

His focus right now is to return to his home and job as a city health inspector.

"It's going to take some time," he said. "There's a lot of rehab, a lot of work. The doctors tell me it'll be another four weeks before I can expect to bear weight on prosthesis. There's a lot of swelling that needs to go down, and they need to shrink that stump down before I can be fitted."

Bailey said she receives frequent updates on Hurley's condition from his family on Facebook and has visited him twice in the hospital. During one visit, she brought him a No Limit Boxing Club T-shirt to hang on the wall.

"I said, ‘Every time you have doubts, I want you to look at that logo and know there's no limit to what you can do if you have a positive attitude,'" she said.

"I like her. I admire her," Hurley said of Bailey. "Of all the people driving by and standing there watching the situation, she was one of the few who stepped up and offered aid.

"I was a screaming maniac. I was losing it. I was actually trying to get up, and there was actually no way that was going to happen. She prevented me from doing that, and I thank her for that."

Bailey, for her part, is demure about her actions that day.

"I think I'm getting too much credit," she said. "I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wish more people wouldn't be afraid to lend a hand, even if it's just talking to them. I think society's becoming desensitized."

Bailey said she retired from nursing in 1996, but after Hurley's accident she is considering reapplying for her license.

"It was a blessing I was there at the right time and how our paths crossed and what God's intentions are for me," she said. "Maybe that's it: to get back into nursing."